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[ChairmanPoo]

It's just dumb being afraid of the word relationship. Every relationship is a relationship. I'm in relationships to all of y'all too

Yes. A nonincestuous fraternal one, at that.

[TD1]

-snip-

Some good advice there, and I appreciate it. I thiiink it's still too early for me to adopt that approach (or perhaps I just don't want to? Seems a thin line.)

Either way I'm now apparently going to be staying with her.... and her parents....  for a weekend in Germany in mid-September 'cause she says she wants to try.

The idea frankly terrifies me.

[nenjin]

Strap in then buddy. If she wants you to spend time with her family, then whatever else she is saying, it sounds like she wants to try and make the exclusive distance relationship work.

It's a reality with people in general that they will say one thing and do another. You just need to decide for yourself how much "words not matching actions" matters to you.

[martinuzz]

Reading back, "Ich hab dich lieb" 100% means I love you, and is not somewhere in between I love you and I like you.

[dragdeler]

I might actually can't.

[TD1]

I might actually can't.

You can't what, sorry?

Reading back, "Ich hab dich lieb" 100% means I love you, and is not somewhere in between I love you and I like you.

“Ich hab dich lieb” translates as “I have love for you” (awkward phrasing), but would be roughly the equivalent of “I cherish/care for/am glad I am related to you.” It has two principle uses: between family members, e.g., “I love you, Grampa”, and as a precursor to “Ich liebe dich”, e.g.: “I really like you, Sweetheart.” My daughter uses this phrase as a closing in many of her emails back home.

Yea I'm still confused ahaha, but she's been saying it a lot. And sends blushy faces if I text her it. Sooo.... eh. I'm guessing in my context it means 'I love you but saying ich liebe dich seems too intense.'

[martinuzz]

I guess you could translate the nuance best as such: Ich liebe dich = I love you, Ich hab dich lieb = I feel love for you. Equal intensity though.
And indeed, just as with the english verb to love, the german verb lieben has multiple meanings, depending if it is between lovers or family / close friends.

But most definitly love, not like. That would be "ich mag dich / Ich mag dich gern" The latter is often an opening sentence for "Ich mag dich gern, aber..." (I really like you, but...).


In Belgian 'ik heb u lief' (literally the same as ich hab dich lieb) is more often used to describe romantic love than 'ik houd van je' (ich liebe dich).
In Dutch, we rarely if ever use 'ik heb je lief' (it has aged out of the common language), we say 'ik houd van je' for all different kinds of love, kindof like how it is in english.

From what I've read, this girl does feel love for you. But has valid concerns about long distance, and perhaps some insecurities or neuro-atypical traits that cause her yes - no -maybe - yes behaviour.
I guess it's up to the both of you to explore if you can make it work! Good luck!

EDIT: Also, living in the EU isn't bad haha

[dragdeler]

Be able, capable, willing and allowed... I'd'a thunked I cuthe but I might actually shan't.



Ich hab dich lieb is not simply a lesser form of ich liebe dich... Ich liebe X is, in a way, the unmistakingly romantic one, but it's also the one employed to indicate if you really like someTHING (i love pizza soccer, heroin... what have you). Absolutely nobody says ich hab pizza lieb that sounds as if you're rubbing your face in greasy pies when you go to bed.
You are correct in that family members are much much more likely to tell eachother ich hab dich lieb, but to many it simply sounds more correct whereas ich liebe dich sounds uncomfortable... Alltogether it's kind of lame/uncomfortable to say in german.


I bet her parents are either hippies or millionaires, possibly both, just goes with the turf.


It's silly to seek closure on the relationship label, since you can't know eachother well enough to know wether it would be a good idea for one of you to expatriate, which is it too early to think about anyway, but if things went well they'd be pointing that way kinda. Either way all of this will involve some sort of den karren vor den ochsen spannen so advise you git gud notdrunk nopotato (she's the kartoffel I don't make the rules).

[TD1]

I bet her parents are either hippies or millionaires, possibly both, just goes with the turf.

What turf? Ahah. Her family's largely 'working class' from what I understand.

Perhaps some insecurities or neuro-atypical traits that cause her yes - no -maybe - yes behaviour.

EDIT: Also, living in the EU isn't bad haha

There's nothing neuro-atypical about her that I've observed. Maybe a fear of commitment but hey, who ain't got that to some degree?

I'd actually consider doing postdoctoral stuff in Germany. Or maybe moving there for a year or two for the craic* after the PhD. But yea, a matter for future discussion.

*Means..... eeh, loosely defined 'fun' but in a semi-wild form?

[dragdeler]

It's germany's city with the most Einkommensmillionäre, people who earn more than a million per year IN SALARY. And being a hippy in germany mostly involves eating greenlabel or fairlabel products.

You can actually go get a pretty good idea of the north - south divide in germany given that you start in munich: munich is even wealthier (but not through salaray) so in the south it's catholic trustfund kids and in the north it's protestant merchant dynasties. North germany is definitly the cooler and more symphatethic germany,  but you'll notice that as soon as you get honked at by a bavarian asshole in a bmw.

[TD1]

Emmmm, I don't recall saying which city she was in?

[Il Palazzo]

Don't worry too much about it. Dragdealer's mind sometimes wanders where few can follow.

[ChairmanPoo]

We are all one in Pathos. What one of us knows we all can know.

Think on that when you are sitting on the potty tonight

[hector13]

But then people will know I’ve been pooping.

[dragdeler]

I am a bit surprised myself, not assuming the guess was right or wrong, just that I was convinced enough that I did read it to search a few pages and I guess you didn't. I've been woken up by a doorbell that didn't ring AND managed to figure that out without getting up more than once. I also did get up an embarassing number of times sure. I guess I'm to blame for messing with certain sleep phases but even before that when I was a child I had phases where dreamed and sweat intensely. These days it would take half a week off work to hope to sleep through one single night without waking up from the sweat, at least once in the latter half of the week. Oh but on the bright side no matter in how many parts my sleep gets broken up, and how chaotic the total length is, I still usually wake up within minutes before the alarm rings.

When I read them I get quite jealous of the fabulous dreams some hee have, all I get it is it either trivial snippets that can be clearly linked to a recent memory, or torturous stuff, or sisyphus stuff, or really ominous shit that makes me prefer to believe it was just a dream... ugh like

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

once I dreamed I was discussing my exes abortion with my exes mother, then later I learned from my ex that after we broke up she didn't have her period for a while and then required some kind of intervention and it's private and I'm fuzzy on the details it wasn't cancerous but basically they had to do something and after told her that she is most likely sterile now.

How lame to think I'm dreaming of a tiny fucking smartphone screen.

I used to be in a really good place I liked, if my sleep did get interrupted I'd often have these dreams where I am somewhat aware of the feeling of my body, which in turn would me make write off some dreams as mere dreams while they happened though not exactly lucidly, more like as an actor in a dream. A healthy distance, sorta.